


Front Page

by purplelacemoon



Category: Billary - Fandom, Political RPF - US 20th c.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 17:30:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18154874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplelacemoon/pseuds/purplelacemoon
Summary: “Unfortunately the number of reporters who usually accompany us had grown exponentially since the Lewinsky scandal broke, and there was a continuous barrage of shouted questions. Some of the questions were very crass, and Hillary ignored them as best she could, but more than once I saw her flinch.” - Patrick S. Halley, On The Road With Hillary





	Front Page

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this almost two years ago now and never actually posted it because it's not really a story...more of just a lengthy rant at how Hillary gets treated by the media but anyway, prompted by a question of tumblr around the same sort of subject I decided to finally go over it today and post it anyway!

_“Unfortunately the number of reporters who usually accompany us had grown exponentially since the Lewinsky scandal broke, and there was a continuous barrage of shouted questions. Some of the questions were very crass, and Hillary ignored them as best she could, but more than once I saw her flinch.” **\- Patrick S. Halley, On The Road With Hillary**_

  
“Mrs Clinton are you considering divorce?”  
  
“Is the President sleeping on the couch?”  
  
“Did you really not have any suspicions Mrs Clinton?”  
  
“Has your trust been betrayed beyond repair?”  
  
“Do you feel embarrassed?”  
  
Hillary could feel the sarcastic responses cascading through her head and burning on the tip of her tongue with their increasingly bitter taste, desperate to escape. _Do I feel embarrassed? Of course I’m fucking embarrassed. Wouldn’t you be? Wouldn’t anyone?_ Sometimes she wondered if these people actually heard themselves as they fired these careless questions at her, yelling aimlessly in her direction as though they were all participating in a particularly cruel pantomime. More often than not just vague and humiliating open-ended statements rather than actual questions, all constructed and thrown out in the hope of baiting her; of sparking her fury or her defense or her tears. It had occurred to Hillary long ago that they didn’t particularly care which one they got. All they wanted was a reaction, something juicy to pick apart and proudly return to their bosses and splash across the front pages of the newspapers at her expense. Hillary had become steadfast in her determination that she would certainly never give them that particular satisfaction. Instead, when she couldn’t ignore them altogether, a tight smile and a careful aversion of her gaze was all she would offer in return to the media frenzy frantically pursuing her. The dejected roll of her eyes confined to the inside where she had trained it to stay locked away during these now frequent scenarios.  
  
The irony was almost too palpable, if she had been in any mood to appreciate it. The fiercely private First Lady, always so cautious in keeping the press safely at arms length to protect both herself and those close to her. _Funny how that had worked out._ The ‘zone of privacy’ she had worked so hard to preserve in the first term seemed like an all too distant memory now that the entire country had been invited in underneath her bedsheets, everyone freely expressing their opinions on such intensely personal matters as though she were nothing more than a fictional character in a television soap opera.  
  
Hillary chuckled darkly to herself as she considered that analogy, part of her feeling strangely envious of those characters. At least _they_ lacked the conscious awareness of actually existing to _know_ how invested a bunch of strangers were in the most intimate aspects of their lives.  
  
_She_ on the other hand had to hear the crass whispers and rumors on a nearly constant basis.  
  
In the initial aftermath, between the press and the staff the subject was virtually completely impossible to avoid. She would turn a corner or enter a room and feel the shift in the atmosphere, catching the guilty looks and the hurried change in conversation, the switching off of the television set and then the looks of thinly veiled pity which were always far too easily seen through. It was a surreal adjustment, approaching people and knowing that their first thought upon seeing you was to wonder about the intimate goings on of your marriage.  
  
“How are you feeling today Mrs Clinton?”  
  
Hillary’s carefully held together facade faltered for just a split second as the half-hearted attempt at friendliness interrupted her thoughts.

_How was she feeling?_

Since burying the magnitude of all she was feeling just to get through the day she wasn’t sure she even knew the answer to that anymore.

She knew it was a relatively well-intended question, but one that Hillary had nonetheless come to loathe because there was no longer any way she could answer even vaguely honestly without veering off into something slightly hysterical sounding. And yet if she answered _dishonestly_ with any of the usual socially acceptable polite responses, it would be so abundantly clear she was lying that it would be laughable. To her, at least. But then gallows humor always had been her default coping strategy of choice.  
  
“Busy,” was the response she usually chuckled back, giving herself the perfect get-out clause to quickly redirect the conversation to the much more comfortable territory of the days work instead. All-business became a protective defense mechanism for her to hide behind, which in itself soon became the subject of much scrutiny and debate. _‘Maybe that’s why he screws around…’ ‘She never loosens up or has any fun, probably never puts out, always work work work’ ‘Who could blame him really…’_  
  
Sometimes Hillary wanted to scream back at the world, tell them all exactly how wrong they were about her and make them blush shades redder than the ones they’d reduced her to with their endless dissecting and salacious speculation. But she had enough regrettable experience to know that would do more harm than good and besides, the people who talked about her like that had already long since made their minds up anyway. No matter what she said or did now, they weren’t likely to change their opinions any time soon.    
  
Occasionally she would be caught off guard and catch a drift of the gossip turning the other way; _‘What the hell was he thinking?’ ‘You know if she was my wife I wouldn’t be looking for it elsewhere.’_ Hillary found herself internally torn by the temptation to take such comments as salve to her desperately wounded self-confidence more than she cared to admit, but most of the time she hated those whispers every bit as much.  
  
Her whole life she had pulled away from the idea that woman belonged in one of two boxes: fuckable and unfuckable. She had swum against the tide and paid a high price indeed for it, determined her worth would be valued by more than just the sum of what was between her legs. No makeup, retaining her own name, choosing sometimes unflattering but functional clothing which all the same clear message; don’t _look_ at me, _listen_ to me.    
  
Now it felt as though it had all been for nothing. She was right back at square one again with few interested in the work she was doing and everyone interested in peering through the keyhole into her bedroom. And she _hated_ it.  
  
Every conversation she had she could practically feel the thoughts lingering at the front of everyone’s consciousness. The silent wondering and hot takes on the most intensely private parts of her life forming in the minds of virtual strangers, everyone pointedly ignoring the elephant in the room until her back was turned again.       
  
She had taken to entering most public situations with a wide smile that would be the subject of endless analysis carefully constructed on her face, proceeding to play this new elaborate game of charades her life had become. _You pretend you weren’t just talking about my sex life and in return, I’ll pretend as though I’m not fully aware that you were._  
  
Still no matter how used to it she became, some people’s complete lack of sensitivity when they thought she wasn’t around continued to amaze her.  
  
_'So do you think she doesn’t…y’know…'_ A vague gesture followed by an eyebrow raise as though the rest of that sentence was unspeakable, despite the fact there was absolutely no doubt left whatsoever in anyone’s mind as to what exactly they were referring to. _'She’s so uptight, she doesn’t seem like the type to put out like that.' 'Maybe she’s just really bad in bed.' 'Let's be real they probably don’t even sleep in the same bed anyway.'_  
  
Beginning to taste the bile rising in her throat, Hillary hadn’t hung around to overhear any more of that particular conversation.  
  
On more than one occasion she had found herself instinctively seeking out Bill to vent her frustrations; longing to share it all with somebody who completely understood and maybe even find a way to laugh about it the way they always used to, wrapping herself in the security of his company and feeling it all just melt away as had been their routine until now. But not this time. Catching herself, Hillary had so far managed to resist the temptation of falling straight back into his arms and reminded herself that _he_ was the very reason she had been put in this position in the first place.  
  
Instead she spoke to her friends, who’s support and kindness she was endlessly grateful for as they rallied around her more fiercely than ever, yet it was never quite the same. The only person being subjected to the same level of intrusive scrutiny, prodded with the same uncomfortable questions under the heat of the glaring spotlight as the nation watched and waited for the next scandalous juicy detail to jump on was the very person who’s counsel she couldn’t seek. Not yet anyway. That reconciliation was still to come, although for the time being she wasn’t entirely sure whether it ever would or even could.  
  
For now Hillary got through her days mostly alone. Throwing herself into her work, crisscrossing the country and fiercely campaigning for the midterms so that the busyness outweighed the loneliness. In theory at least. It was remarkable how lonely one could feel while constantly surrounded by staff, secret service agents and of course millions upon millions of concerned and curious eyes all burning into her the very second she stepped out in public.  
  
After one particularly unpleasant encounter with a journalist Hillary had to wonder when exactly “smile for the camera” had been replaced with “cry for the camera”. After all that was the only thing anybody seemed interested in covering in the mainstream media these days. Save America’s Treasures? Forget it. Wearing dark glasses to hide the redness around her eyes from sleepless tearful nights? Full front page spread guaranteed and packed with speculation and faux-sympathetic headlines that made her cringe.  
  
Wherever she went the press pool was never looming too far away, teeming with more of the exact same questions and desperately trying to lure her in and coax any kind of reaction out of her over and over again.  
  
“Are you embarrassed?”

“Are you angry?”

“Did you cry?”  
  
Internally Hillary scoffed in barely  masked disbelief, because surely the answer was plainly obvious to all of the above.  
  
_So why do you all so want me to say it?_  
  
She knew, of course, but on some level it still never ceased to astonish her. The feigned angle of so-called concern was nothing but a smokescreen for the real purpose of their questioning and that had always been to exploit her, never to comfort her. Her pain was nothing but a scoop and a paycheck to them. The lowest point in her marriage suddenly the most interesting thing about her, the only thing worth talking about anymore.  
  
As Hillary made her way past another endless sea of shrieking photographers she gave away little but her usual polite silent wave and a smile before escaping into the welcome solace of her motorcade, contemplating not for the first time that maybe they should all just be honest with themselves for once and ask the questions they really meant and be done with it.  
  
“Are you embarrassed _enough?”_  
  
“Are you angry _enough?”_  
  
“Have you cried _enough?”_  
  
_“Have we tortured you enough yet?”_


End file.
